The Listening Room Reality

I had an interesting conversation with my dealer the other week when purchasing new speakers. I mentioned I was going to look into room treatments. He advised me to wait until I have furniture in room. A previous sofa they used in a listening room had to be removed as it was removing too much bass energy and the room had a poor bass response.

Well that would be very nice, a wall-less effect, I really wish that was possible :smiley:

But, unfortunately, it’s not. For two main reasons:

  • Imagine how much porous material we need to fully absorb 30Hz (which has a wavelength of nearly 12 meters)… A lot! :laughing:

  • We can’t get rid of room mods. It is that simple. The only way to do that is… headphones.

From what I learned and from own experience, the key thing is “even decay time” and absorbing as much low end energy as possible. Taking care of the highs and mids is easy stuff.

We can’t “deaden” a room, but we can easily mess the decay time (killing the mids and highs, and living the lows untamed).

I’ll probably move in a couple years and am planning to build a dedicated listening room from scratch. That’s why I keep learning about acoustics. The first step will be room size/volume.

2 Likes

And that’s the stage I am at at the moment!

N.B. There is also shape. Of course unless building your own room from scratch choices are limited, especially shape.

You’re lucky guy! :+1: Building a room from scratch is so cool :smiley:

When/if we move, I’ll be able to choose size, chape and therefore volume.

Unfortunately height will be limited. If I can get 2,8 to 3 meters I’ll be lucky. The cost of 30 cm more height is tremendous…

But regarding size, I’d be able to go up to 50 square meters.

My current listening room is my laboratory. I need it to sound good but it has to be nice. The wife acceptance factor is high, but everything has to look good :joy:

This is actually my next move as have a massive corner sofa in the room which could be causing something negative. I’m planning on removing half of it from the room to see how it effects the response. Hopefully I’ll get lucky.

That’s so very true…
Psychoacoustics is a strange thing, but a very interesting topic! :nerd_face:

:thinking:

Nooooo!!! I didn’t mean I’m building from scratch, but seeking a new place and so hoping for a better shape and dimensions, though with possibly a certain degree of modification possible. How I wish I could build, but simply no land available in the right area.

Sorry, I guess my English is a bit rusty…
I hope you’ll be able to find a new place with a nice and spacious room were to place your system.

I’m surprised no one has yet tried PSI audio Avaa bass trap. Looks interesting. Not cheap but could make life a lot easier especially in small rooms.

Not tried but thought of it. I mentioned it somewhere in the thread.

Hi IB, from my experience reflections cause more image shift than muddling things up. Also spurious high frequency reflections are a pain in the back side and need to be addressed if in the subtlest of way. Excessive bass however is a killer for muddling the whole frequency band up or I should say was in my room.
If people here are contemplating delving into room treatment ( because they can) I would think that no less than 80% of cases will invariably be a bass lift, which will need to be addressed first!
GIK TriTraps are certainly not the most efficient, when it comes to curing a say sub 80Hz lift. Soffit bass traps are however much better suited for this.
You can achieve great results by experimenting and in my experience you do not need to cover 27% of your room with panels. Even in my dedicated listening room, I haven’t needed to and wouldn’t in fact dream of!
Also more importantly get the speakers out and away from the corners of the room. I see far too many pics on Systempics, where speakers are squeezed into corners surrounded by gear/ furniture also in between the speakers.
LET THE SPEAKERS BREATHE! :+1:t3:
Still assuming that a bass lift is the problem, do make sure that the amp actually due to its current delivery ( not watts outright) is able to grip the speakers and control the bass driver.
Thirdly make sure that your amp itself is not causing an unresolved bass issue in the room by the simple fact, that it is starting to fade and is in fact in need of a service. ( Been there :roll_eyes: and cannot say it made my initial room treatment endeavours particularly easy but in fact highly frustrating).
Lastly always try to aim at getting your speakers placed at the exact same distance to the side walls, something which will favour less time smear big time!
I’ll get me coat… Have fun everyone and make sure not to overcomplicate the process! ATB Peter

1 Like

Hi Thomas, you may find that IB is actually female hence my post ( and of course I could be entirely wrong :face_with_hand_over_mouth:). ATB Peter

That sounds to me as though you have insufficient absorption below 70Hz in comparison to the amount of absorption 70Hz-500Hz.

That’s not correct, absorption below 50Hz can be achieved using pressure mode absorbers (i.e. absorbers with membranes) rather than flow mode absorbers (i.e. large lumps of porous material without an external membranes).

You’re right! :+1:

Not sure those membrane based absorbers are easy to build/calibrate.

Also, that kind of tech should probably be built directly into the walls for maximum results.

This is something to think about when building a room from scratch.

Oops, I should have said “person” instead of “guy”.

@Innocent_Bystander , Sorry

IB a woman? I would never have imagined it. :face_with_monocle:

To me Thomas in this PC World we are living in, I would just find it jolly refreshing in this what seems to be generally a somewhat male-driven hobby/ Forum. :+1:t3: ATB Peter

1 Like

Quick question if I may. For first reflection points do the panels need to be at roughly the height of the drivers?